Next Update Nov. 3

QUICK OVERVIEW

• (NYT) China has become shrill in its criticism of the fiscal train wreck in the United States, arguing that the answer to a potential government default is to begin creating a “de-Americanized world.”..
• Fitch placed the triple A credit rating of the US on negative watch.
• One-month Treasury bills maturing on October 31 shot up 21 basis points to a new debt ceiling peak of 53 bps

• Brazil raised rates for fifth straight time since April bringing it close to double digits.

• The International Cocoa Organization is lifting its forecast for a Cocoa  deficit to 86,000 tons. It warned, "We are going to be in a deficit for the next four years, but closer to 50,000 to 60,000 tons".

• Accepting USDA's soybean numbers puts stocks to use at 4.5%; one of the tightest on record, with a very tight 2013-14 balance sheet

• Microsoft received 37,196 requests for user data from law enforcement agencies during the first six months of 2013.

• (Esquire} The War on Drugs Is Over. Drugs Won "The war on drugs could not have been a bigger failure. To sum up their most important findings, the average purity of heroin and cocaine has increased, respectively, 60% and 11% between 1990 and 2007. Cannabis purity is up a whopping 161% over that same time"

Next Update October 15/16